A couple months ago my brother spilled some water on my 3DS. I immediately tried to dry it with a towel and blowdryer. It was acting strange for a bit but after it dried it was working fine. So I figured it was fine and didn't have any problems up until a couple weeks ago when it stopped charging and wouldn't go past the home menu.

So I sent it in for repair and they said it wasn't covered under warranty due to water damage. Cost me ~$100 to repair. When I got it back I started it up and it was going through the initial setup; then I saw a note that they replaced my system which they didn't tell me they were going to do. I noticed that my games from the ambassador program were there, but when I went to streetpass mii plaza it said I didn't have a default mii and to make one in mii maker. The weird thing is when I highlighted the mii maker it showed all the other miis that I had previously.

I called nintendo and the lady I talked to wasn't very helpful, she basically said "yeah that can happen". But when I was making the repair order it didn't say anything about streetpass data being possibly lost, it only mentioned stuff like photos and internet settings being lost.

I had almost 1000 unique miis from various countries, all the puzzle pieces, and almost all the hats. I put a lot of time and effort into streetpass so I want to do everything possible to get it back. I've been trying to find some in depth info about how streetpass works and where the various data is stored. Any info or help is appreciated!

I figured as much, just gotta accept it I guess. It just annoyed me how they didnt inform me that may happen and when it did they were like "oh well". Its like why even have achievements and stuff if theres no backups.

I suggest trying to call Nintendo again. Sometimes you get somebody good, sometimes you don't.

There may be something they can do to help you.

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They can't just hand in Streetpass Plaza progress to you like that, like you can swap save files or something. Plus, sending in a unit for repair almost always guarantees a fresh reformat. They probably just took note of the software you have and redownloaded them or something.

Do tell: do ANY of your non-cartridge games retain their save files? Ambassador VC titles? Face Raiders? AR Games? ANY?

If none, then you got formatted. If most/some of them retain your own saves, then repairman must have corrupted something, or figured he'd have to do something that might corrupt data to fix your 3DS.

I suggest trying to call Nintendo again. Sometimes you get somebody good, sometimes you don't.

There may be something they can do to help you.

Click to expand...

They can't just hand in Streetpass Plaza progress to you like that, like you can swap save files or something. Plus, sending in a unit for repair almost always guarantees a fresh reformat. They probably just took note of the software you have and redownloaded them or something.

Do tell: do ANY of your non-cartridge games retain their save files? Ambassador VC titles? Face Raiders? AR Games? ANY?

If none, then you got formatted. If most/some of them retain your own saves, then repairman must have corrupted something, or figured he'd have to do something that might corrupt data to fix your 3DS.

Click to expand...

id assume maybe the data was corrupted from the damage as VC save data is stored on SD card, where spotpass data is stored on internal memory

Everything that was stored on the 3DS internal memory was lost (streetpass, friends list, mii, activity log even the Nintendo Zone icon), all my ambassador games/eshop stuff, photos, etc stored on the SD card remained intact.

It sucks, I stopped using my 3DS for months because of it, just couldn't be bothered to redo it all - only started playing on it again recently for Kingdom Hearts, certainly not bothering to redo all of Streetpass Quest again, neraly a year of data lost on that

Do tell: do ANY of your non-cartridge games retain their save files? Ambassador VC titles? Face Raiders? AR Games? ANY?

Click to expand...

All my ambassador games were there along with their save files. The weird thing is when I highlighted Face Raiders and Mii Maker it showed the picture of my old stuff, but when I started them up they restarted.

Everything that was stored on the 3DS internal memory was lost (streetpass, friends list, mii, activity log even the Nintendo Zone icon), all my ambassador games/eshop stuff, photos, etc stored on the SD card remained intact.

It sucks, I stopped using my 3DS for months because of it, just couldn't be bothered to redo it all - only started playing on it again recently for Kingdom Hearts, certainly not bothering to redo all of Streetpass Quest again, neraly a year of data lost on that

Click to expand...

I feel ya man, its like they don't realize/care how much effort it takes. feels like its just a gimmick

Do tell: do ANY of your non-cartridge games retain their save files? Ambassador VC titles? Face Raiders? AR Games? ANY?

Click to expand...

All my ambassador games were there along with their save files. The weird thing is when I highlighted Face Raiders and Mii Maker it showed the picture of my old stuff, but when I started them up they restarted.

Click to expand...

Yep exactly the same, still have my ambassador/eshop games and save files (I would have been REALLY pissed if they lost my Minish Cap and Links Awakening saves )

I never noticed the Mii Maker/Face Raiders thing but as I haven't loaded face raiders since the repair I thought i'd check, and yep the menu item shows previous use, but as soon as it was loaded it reset it - and takes me through the tutorial how to play the damn game

apparently only the temporary tags are stored on the SD Card and the Miis themselves, as well as Puzzles and find Mii progress are stored on the system memory.

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that is stupid, i would be angry to loose streetpass progress, it's taken me a long time for my progress so far, why haven't nintendo learned about backup stuff? first it was the games now it's the streetpass data!